The Spirits #3: The 50/50 Martini

~ Filthy Olives ~ "Volatile, high-strung and excitable" ~ B, D#, C#, B ~ Noilly Pas ~ Nigella Carbonara ~

~ 50/50 MARTINI ~

25ml gin
25ml French vermouth
Dash orange bitters (entirely optional)

Place a cocktail glass in the freezer before you begin. Five minutes should give it the requisite frost. Now pour the gin and vermouth in the shaker, add plenty of ice (well above the gin-line) and stir patiently. Keep stirring. Still stirring? Good. And that should do it. I said you can stop now. Strain the cocktail into the cold glass and garnish with a lemon zest twist and/or a plump green olive (with just a dash of brine, too). I reckon a spritz of orange zest would be fine too in place of bitters.

Some music. Welcome. Hell of a week huh?

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ONCE, in the Before-Time, I was invited to New York to write about a new and more expensive type of headphone that Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine’s Beats company was launching. The intention of these “press trips” is always the same: persuade/flatter/corrupt selected media into writing nice things about X. It usually works. The ethics sort of depend on how you feel about X. Sometimes it’s some fancy headphones. Sometimes it’s, I don’t know, the Donald Trump presidency. We all have our price.

Anyway, I had a nice time. I flew First Class for the to-date only time in my life. I discovered that free alcohol/US Immigration officials counteract the restful effects of First Class. I got to see my NY friends. I had a conversation with the guy who signed Elliott Smith to Dreamworks(!). And I found the whole Beats story genuinely interesting. The headphones stopped working shortly after I’d filed my article (also lost), but hey - Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine later sold the company to Apple for three billion dollars and fair play to them.

There was also a party at some point, in a club that apparently featured heavily in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. Dr. Dre spent much of the evening in a roped off area that looked exactly like something in a hip-hop video, only everyone was slightly older. The dinner was: steak. No sides. (“Aggressive!” said a journalist from Forbes. “I like it”). And I ordered a Dry Martini (“Gin please?”) from the free bar and the bartender made it like this: Gin. Ice. Stir. Pour. No garnish.

“Aren’t you going to put… vermouth in it?”

“Nope,” said the bartender.

And I didn’t dare insist. Even though I was pretty sure dry meant a bit of vermouth - not zero vermouth? And, ahem, where’s my olive? But I wasn’t so confident of these things back then and I didn’t want to seem like some sort of Elliott Smith fan. Besides, he exhibited the levels of patience you’d expect from someone who spends most of his time serving Martinis to people whose response to American Psycho was: “Well, it’s Wall Street for me!” He hadn’t seemed too impressed when I asked for gin as opposed to vodka.

So I drank the cold, garnish-less liquor. It wasn’t that nice. Neither is steak with no sides. Still. To be at that party right now! Any party, frankly.

MEANWHILE IN ANOTHER PART OF MANHATTAN…

What I didn’t realise then, Martini milquetoast that I was, was that only a few blocks away on W. Houston Street, a bartender named Audrey Saunders was quietly orchestrating a wet Martini counter-putsch at her bar Pegu Club. Her ‘Fitty-Fitty Martini’ appeared on the menu in 2005. Contra the then-prevailing wisdom that Martinis should be as light on the vermouth as possible and probably vodka based, the Fitty-Fitty was 50% gin, 50% vermouth, with dash of orange bitters. It was not a Martini that made anyone go: “Aggressive. I like it”. But it was a Martini of aroma, delicacy, suggestion. A midweek Martini. A sociable Martini. “It’s a flavorful, elegant quaff that embodies the notion of culinary balance and not that of alcoholic largesse,” as Saunders told ‘Punch’ magazine. “It reflects equal attention to both flavor and detail.”

Some continue to see it as an aberration. There are decades of anti-vermouth propaganda, vodka marketing, and grumpy bartenders to contend with. But Saunders has noted that the original Martini recipe was equal parts vermouth and gin, suggesting that all other Martinis are aberrations. And her vision has proved influential. These days, Martini fashions, at least among the cocktail cognoscenti are very much vermouthy. If you really want to earn the disapproval of a certain type of bartender… order a Vodka Martini.

Melancholy aside: Pegu Club is yet another victim of this infernal virus.

I say: Have your Martini however you want it. Reject accuracy, precision, fashion, and the concept of perfection! Different occasions call for different Martinis. But I do recommend that you try the 50/50 formula sometime - like, now? - especially if you’re usually a 5:1 sort of person. And you should certainly try it if you’ve always found Martinis too strong. It’s quite an approachable drink. Doesn’t necessarily need fancy gin either. I made the above recipe twice, once with Noilly Prat and Tanqueray 10 (c. £35 a bottle); and then again with Noilly Prat and basic Beefeater (c. £15 a bottle)… and guess what? I kind of like the second one more.

Another tiny modification. My recipe, you will notice, calls for only 25ml gin. This is a micro-nod to Alex Kratena and Monika Berg’s bar Tayēr + Elementary in east London, where they serve a ‘One-Sip Martini’ - literally just a thimbleful. I like this idea. A liquid appetiser. Cocktail servings (wine too) used to be far, far smaller than they are today. And if you’re drinking at home, you won’t feel short-changed, as you can always make another.

You might also like to know that the Tayēr + Elementary Martini has a teeny bit of fino sherry in it too (that’s the bone dry stuff). And that a tiny “spot” of absinthe is delicious in a Martini too. Also, those filthy-delicious Fragata olives you get in cans with anchovies inside them? Outstanding in a Martini. And don’t feel the olive and lemon thing is an either/or. Have both! Have both and the absinthe and the orange bitters and a nice slug of brine from the olive tin too - this was the advice of the bar-tending great Ryan Chetiyawardana when I quizzed him for this piece on Martinis a couple of years ago.

But remember, it’s your party.

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TIP JAR

I’m adding this by popular request (honestly!) Do also please feel extremely free to send the Spirits to anyone you think might like it. Sharing, as my six-year-old tells me, is caring.

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PLAYLIST

“Everybody says I'm wrong
Everybody says I'm wrong
But we keep it going on”

This week’s playlist is brought to you by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (+7), 8, 23, 46, 50(x4), 54 and 100. Yes that’s right. We’re all about digits (<100).

Incidentally, the guitar chords to 1 Thing by Amerie are: B, D#, C#, B (and then up to G#). See the precise fingerings here. This is probably the single more pleasure-giving thing I learned during the first lockdown.

CW: 3x bars of dub in 5/4 time

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OFFER!

Online alcohol shop The Drop Store is giving readers of the Spirits a discount. Head HERE, have a mooch and if you add thespirits10 (i.e. lowercase!) in the promo code you will get 10% off at checkout.

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ASK RICHARD

Writer and adventuress Susie Mesure wonders:

“Waitrose substituted my Noilly Prat vermouth order for Martini Extra Dry. Do I need to complain??”

Yes! Not necessarily because one is much better than the other (though, by preference, I would go for… Dolin Extra Dry). But because they’re different products. Noilly Prat is more honeyish, lemony, sweeter. Martini Extra Dry has a steely, austere, herbal quality. You can make decent Martinis with both. But if you asked for Burgundy and you got Bordeaux, that wouldn’t be right, right? It’s the principle. That said, I would totally lose my nerve/patience and not bother (see above anecdote).

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FEMININE AND APPEARS MORE HARMLESS THAN IT IS

From Shirley Jackson’s 1951 gothic novel Hangsaman:

“A [M]artini* is a sort of cocktail (which I do not, myself, regard with great enjoyment) served exclusively and drunk exclusively by a clearly defined type of person. As far as my experience makes it possible for me to judge, this person is usually volatile, high-strung and excitable. All of these are qualities shared by good vermouth, which is one of the ingredients of a Martini. Another ingredient is gin, which is feminine and appears more harmless than it is: another characteristic of your Martini-drinker. The third ingredient of the Martini is bitters, and I need labor my metaphor no further, I hope. I will add that the drink is served ice-cold, that some people prefer to have the ingredients shaken, some prefer them stirred, that it is possible to refine one’s position with regard to the Martini by discarding the traditional olive, and passing along further stages of refinement through the black olive, the twist of lemon peel, to the final, most effete, pearl onion. It is thus possible, you will perceive, to express the most exquisite shadings of personality.”

Thank you to Seb Emina, editor of The Happy Reader, for alerting me to this peerless bit of shade cast in the direction of the Martini. You can sign up to his delightful newsletter, Happy Readings, which is a bit like a cocktail club but for books, here.

*All cocktails should be capitalised. Sorry. My bar my rules.

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FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH FRENCH VERMOUTH!

French vermouth is a useful bottle to have around. I find Italian vermouth marginally more useful in cocktails than French - but I run out of French more often, as I always end up using it for cooking. Usually in Italian-type dishes, funnily enough. This might be because I learned to cook (and, sort of, write?) from Nigella Lawson’s peerless (and largely pictureless) How to Eat - and she’s always banging on about Noilly Prat. It keeps. Unlike white wine. Try it in:

• Spaghetti Carbonara. The Nigella version isn’t going to win any accuracy awards from Roman Nonnas, but it’s still v. tasty. Carbonara is also good cocktail food, as it makes use of the egg-yolks you set aside while making your pre-dinner round of Whiskey Sours.

• Risottos. Toast the rice in a dry pan, throw in some onion/garlic/leek and butter, and once this is softened, splash over a glass of vermouth… And continue in the usual fashion.

• Bolognese. You should use white wine, not red wine, in a proper bolognese sauce (also milk). Martini Extra Dry lifts it to the heavens. Really.

• Cream-based Sauces. For example this tarragon sauce w/ salmon.

• Pot Roasts. Lightly brown a well-raised chicken, throw it in a casserole w/ onions, celery, carrot, fennel, green olives, herbs, things like that, plus a glass of vermouth and maybe some extra stock. Roast for 90 minutes or so. Martini Chicken!

Cocktails: not just for drinking.

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WHAT I’M READING

• Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This, which is published in February, so I’m not allowed to tell you yet that it’s a FLAWLESS MASTERPIECE.

• The Oscar for ‘Best First Paragraph’ goes to… Oliver Franklin-Wells for this outstanding article on JET PACKS. (Wired).

• “He’d been listening forever to his mother’s extensive rhythm-and-blues and jazz record collection. When she came home after work at night, he once said, the stereo went on before the lights…” If you’re not familiar w/ Dre’s origins (and how gangsta rap conquered America), Terry McDermott’s long-read from 1992 is one of my all-time favourite pieces of music journalism. (L.A. Times).

• Alicia Kennedy writes fascinating dispatches on sustainability, climate change and Piña Coladas from San Juan, Puerto Rico in her Substack. You should also check out this piece she wrote in defence of Long Island Iced Tea, everyone’s favourite cocktail when they were 17. (Vice).

• Here’s Swedish writer Andres Malm interviewed on zoonotic spillover, or how coronavirus and climate change are linked… maybe save this one for after the weekend. (New Statesman).

• Oh and I wrote this fun essay on why the Culture War Will Not Take Place (Unherd)

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SHOPPING LIST

As above (i.e. gin, French vermouth) but also redcurrants, golden caster sugar and (optional!) rosewater. Redcurrants are near the end of their (UK) season, but I found some in Waitrose and have seen them at greengrocers. BUT ANY OTHER SEASONAL RED BERRY TYPE THING AVAILABLE IN YOUR LOCALE WOULD DO AS A SUB! 🍒 For rosewater, try the baking section? Or else a Turkish/Middle Eastern grocer… but as I say, this is optional.